Tyranid 2010 Tactica Discussion

[HFLep]

You take furious charge for the strength bonus, not the init.
S4 hormagaunts against t4 models when hormagaunts have poison results in the hormgaunts re-rolling all failed wounds which massively increases their ability to kill the living hell out of anything t4.

IE charge 20 gaunts into 10 marines you get 60 attacks, 30 hits+2-3 more hits from re-rolls from talons. then you get around 16 wounds+8 more wounds from re-rolls=24 wounds. 24 wounds to save is something like 8 dead marines. Throw in a little bit of support like the WS dropping psychic power (3+ hits) or (and!) the preferred enemy buff and they'll tear the squad apart on the charge before they can even swing.

Where does it say that poison lets you re-roll your to-wound rolls? Did I miss something? Poison is an automatic 4+ to wound against anything, unless you can get a better result with strength. Why pay the points for a on-the-charge upgrade when you can buy something that works all the time against all toughnesses?

[Souleater]

Poison gives you a re-roll if your S is equal or greater than the target's toughness as well as the flat 'to wound'.

Adglands of course push you to the magic 4 on the charge. Hormies might start replacing stealers as killy units.

Running the rough math a unit of 20x tooled up Hormies are better against MEQ than 30x vanilla hormies.

[azimaith]

Not only do you get to S4 on the charge but you also hit init 6 allowing you to outpace many eldar and even tangle with genestealers on more than even ground.

Hormagaunts, at the very least, will be a huge sleeper hit, a tyranid assault cannon practically. I expect to see alot of adrenal+toxin hormas
Toughness 3 enemies- om nom nom nom.
Toughness 4, same, thanks to re-rolls.
Toughness 5, overwhelming number of attacks all wounding on a 4+.
Toughness 6-10 Same as toughness 5.

C'tan, Wraithlords, wraithguard, and the like are all just toxin bait while smaller enemies like marines, and guard are re-rolled to death. Combine that with cheaper gaunts and a 3d6 fleet giving you a very high chance to move 6 I can't see why anyone wouldn't want hormagaunts. They can kill basically any troop choice you would have trouble with for any other model.
Terminators? Drown them in saves (Around 24 on an average roll to be exact!)
Super tough MCs? Same.
The only models you're going to have problems with are multiwound many attack toughness 5 models with hefty numbers of wounds which really boils down to either Nob Bikers or Ogryns.

Considering that a nob biker squad can easily reach 300 points you get a lot to counter them with and when you really consider how much more damage you can put in with hormagaunts being supported it gets insane.

IE Throw in a hive tyrant with paroxysm and one with the preferred enemy re-roll ability.
20 hormagaunts, 60 attacks each hitting on 3's (bikers are WS1 now)
40 hits, 20 misses, 13 or so re-rolls equal 53 hits altogether, wounds on 4+ causing 22 or so wounds.
11 saves, 5 or so fnp. 6 failed or about 3 dead bikers before they can strike. Considering the squad size maxes at 10 for an astounding 480 points with just a pain boy and naked bikers you can see how much of a points sink it can be before they start adding on equipment, especially if they do nob wound stupidity. Contrary to their units, you're not just tying up some 400 points of a typical nob biker squad with 200 or so points of gaunts, you're inflicting considerable damage!

[Cosmic_Girl]

Troops

Tyranid Warriors - I really like Tyranid Warriors so far, despite the naysayers. 3 wounds and base 4+ save makes them good against anything but serious anti-tank firepower (remember for the 30 pts, you get a pair of scything talons and a devourer as well as +1 WS, +1BS and +1 save over their previous incarnation. If you do the math over the last codex they come out to the same price for those upgrades and you trade EW for a localised "shadow in the warp" effect an extra wound and no vulnerablility to anti-psyker rules and wargear, plus they're now scoring)

All in all I think its a good trade. If you use catalyst on them they can take a massive beating of basic fire and wade through it, which isn't a bad idea keeping your Tyranid Warriors near your Termagant/Tervigon firebase as it gives them some serious combat punch if something that the tervigon can't handle comes for you. The downside is, that's a fair chunk of points concentrated in a small area of the board and it makes you vulnerable to blasts, so unless there's multiple objectives near by you may want to use Hive Commander to outflank the warriors (again giving you a combat capable synapse node in the enemy deployment zone that is also a scoring unit).

The other thing about outflanking them is that with the deathspitter and venom cannon upgrades it gives them some serious firepower into the side armour of something. They can also be made combat monsters if you want, but its not cheap and ultimately they're no more survivable. 5-6 with bonesword/whip/scyth talons coming out in the wake of a trygon is nasty ESPECIALLY with an attached Prime (sadly no assault that turn).

I ran mine with deathspitters and rending claws and a single venom cannon. All they did in my games was outflank to hold and objective and pick at light vehicles and infantry with their guns. Not really a judicious use of 200 odd points, but they held an objective and no one wanted to go near them.

Genestealers - Both times I tried these they outflanked and came in the wrong side, so I didn't get a lot of use out of them, but I've given my opinion of them in already. The only thing I'll add is that they're nice cheap shock troops that hit hard and can mitigate nasty HQ choices like Abaddon and Ghazkhull with the Hypnotic Gaze ability with Deathleaper (assuming they don't have psychic lockdown). Broodlords aren't quite the hammer units they once were having lost their power weapons, but the ability to shut a hidden p-fist or combat HQ monster out of the game is a steal for the pts.

Fleet and Infiltrate as standard is amazing for the points you pay for them. Not having to spend pts on these upgrades allows you to take a lot more for the points (even though they don't hit as hard without upgrades) so I think the "bums on seats" approach is the way to go with these guys (and most other units in the dex) it also has the nice side effect (or perhaps intended effect) that we all buy more minatures.

Termagant - Basically the same as they once were having lost WON, but gaining a strong synergy with Tervigons and Venomthropes. The Strangleweb is surprisingly effective if used in concert with "Onslaught" since they move up very fast and hit them with multiple flamer templates. Firstly it pins which is nice to get the gaunts into position for another volley, secondly it bypasses the lackluster BS of the Termagants, thirdly it saves the Termagaunts from the reprisals of the Eldar Guardian "shoot then die in assault next turn" strategy. The pinning also buys the nearby Tervigon time to pump out another unit to really unleash a hailstorm of shots.

Even with the Tervigon's abilities, I just can't see them being that nasty in combat, they really need some support if they're going to take objectives, but for holding them they're just fine, especially with the defensive abilities of a venomthrope.

Hormagaunt - I know there was a lot of people crying about this choice, but I have to say I like them. Very cheap to encourage the quantity over quality approach, yes, they lost the cavalry charge, but the new "Bounding Leap" makes up for it somewhat. Plus it slows down the tempo of your swarm, which I think times the assault better rather than leaving the rest of the swarm behind and going in solo, the running tyrants and Tyranid Shrikes can keep pace and hit with them. As for the no frag grenades issue, I've already spoken about that, but paroxsym seems to be the tool they've given nid players to deal with charge reactions.

I've done the math on Hormagaunts, here it is:

Example: 60 pts buys either 6 toxin/adrenal gaunts or 10 basic gaunts.

a) 6 "uber gaunts" on the charge vs MEQ's
18 attacks -> 9 hits + 0.75 hits from scyth re-rolls -> 9.75 hits total
9.75 hits = 4.87 wounds + 2.43 from re-rolls -> 7.3 wounds

b) 10 normal gaunts on the charge vs MEQ's
30 attacks -> 15 hit + 1.25 -> 16.25 hits
16.25 -> 5.41 wounds.

So Uber gaunts are more deadly point for point (therefore the upgrades are a more efficient use of points than more gaunts, but then you have to consider that the trade off for more killing power is less wounds). All in all I personally like more wounds so I'd opt for larger squads, with no upgrades, since I run mine with a Tyrant who can provide them with hitting power and paroxysm, which increases their killing power anyway without the need for self-contained upgrades. The only other argument I like in favour of the toxin, is for taking down big game, like wraithlords, talos, MC's in general, but that's what they gave us Genestealers for.

Rippers - Really can't see a use for these. They just give away kill points and can't score. With so many other great troops choices in the codex and them being almost useless, plus I think the base model is no good and the upgrades are too expensive.

[meanmachine]

are 10 hormagaunts with adrenal glands & toxin sacks better than 20 termagaunts

i think 10 points per gaunt is a bit steap since they have a save of 6,
you are as fast as jump infantry now, jump infrantry struggle to get to combat before dying

[HFLep]

Poison gives you a re-roll if your S is equal or greater than the target's toughness as well as the flat 'to wound'.

Adglands of course push you to the magic 4 on the charge. Hormies might start replacing stealers as killy units.

Running the rough math a unit of 20x tooled up Hormies are better against MEQ than 30x vanilla hormies.

I guess you learn something new every day. But if that's the case, I think that termagants get even better than hormies, since they get the bonus of a nearby Tervigon (saving points), and can counter-charge (and I think the counter-charge gets the adrenal glands).

[azimaith]

I guess you learn something new every day. But if that's the case, I think that termagants get even better than hormies, since they get the bonus of a nearby Tervigon (saving points), and can counter-charge (and I think the counter-charge gets the adrenal glands).

Hormagaunts get an extra attack which means they'll end up with more re-rolled wounds from their charge plus they move faster.

[Treadhead_1st]

I may start Nids next year - always liked them but could never make a decent enough army list.

I really like a "horror" theme army, so I'm considering a force build around lots of fast critters, lots of winged critters and a couple of Mawlocs.

What do people think of the Harpy (or whatever the flying MC in Fast Attack is)? It's something that could be a nice addition to the force since it'd be lacking in anti-tank firepower (I favour close-combat with Nids), but I've heard people commenting that it's not very good.

Also, from an anti-Tyranid perspective: Do Force Weapons work against the big beasties now? I would have thought they did, given the lack of immunity to Instant Death from Synapse these days, but someone said above "you trade EW for a localised "shadow in the warp" effect an extra wound and no vulnerablility to anti-psyker rules and wargear" in regards to Warriors.

[azimaith]

Yes force weapons work on them.

[Cosmic_Girl]

but someone said above "you trade EW for a localised "shadow in the warp" effect an extra wound and no vulnerablility to anti-psyker rules and wargear" in regards to Warriors.

I meant that you lose Eternal Warrior (and thus become vulnerable to insta-death inflicted by Force Weapons), but gain an extra wound in the case of Tyranid Warriors. Since they are no longer psykers (but are still synapse creatures they are no longer vulnerable to weapons, wargear or special rules that target psykers. Finally, Shadow in the Warp used to be battlefield wide, now its localised to within 12" of the creature with the ability. Sorry if that was unclear.

Fast Attack

Tyranid Shrikes - Winged Warriors have always been a favourite of mine and having costed them out, they're 6 pts cheaper than their predecessors and gain all the benefits same as normal warriors. The Shadow ability with Shrikes is even more useful since you want them close to enemy HQ's with their Direswords and nasty combat abilites, they'll be charging into the thick of it, so annoying things like Jaws and Lash will be a lot less troubling if they're testing on 3D6. I only used mine against orks in my test games, so it was a bit of a waste and I'd have much preferred guns in that circumstance, but the nob bikerz ran in terror. I guess it goes to show there's always a bigger fish.

Also important to realise that Tyranid Primes can't buy wings and therefore are ill suited to being attached to Shrike units, so they need to be a bit more combat capable on their own. On a side note, throwing up a cheap gargoyle screen to provide the shrikes with cover and to tie up powerfists is a great tactic which worked really well for me. No one worth playing is stupid enough to shoot the gargolyes over the Shrikes mind you, but that the Gargoyles stop the firepower a turn earlier and increase the rather fragile shrikes survivability makes them more than worth it at their bargain basement cost.

Ravner - I have tried Ravners and I like them. They hit really hard, especially with "Onslaught" from a Tervigon. Its also nice to have such a long assault range, because they can support a firebase without grouping up and populating an area and making it ripe for blasts. Changes to Scyth talons really helped these guys, just a shame they can't take boneswords with such a high number of base attacks. Also remember that since Warriors no longer have EW, Ravners are now relatively less vulnerable (or rather warriors are more vulnerable to insta-death) so if its raw hitting power you're after Ravners are no less survivable. Side note RAW Ravners can't follow Trygons via deepstrike as they are no "infantry". Great rules development by GW...

Sky-slasher brood - fancy name for Rippers with wings, exactly the same criticisms here as with the ground based troops choice.

Gargoyles - Gargoyles really do live up to their fluff in this iteration. They are cheap and annoying bullet shield for shrikes that tie up gunlines. Best used with outflanking synapse creatures so they can put a nice big fearless combat in the way of anyone behind.

Their offensive power is pretty average with only a single shot and a single attack especially with the loss of bio-plasma, I haven't done the math but my instincts tell me that the upgrades wouldn't be worth nearly as much as more bodies in the air. I guess with their "blinding venom" you could try for something big like a wraithlord or talos, but honestly, at 6 pts each it could be ANYTHING with wings and I'd buy it. I'd pay 6 pts for a snotling with wings.

Harpies - Another new choice that I really like that is cleary designed to make you buy the 2 monstrous creatures and the direct only bits required to assemble it. Harpies fly around the flanks putting big holes in infantry squads. Master of the pie plate, Harpies will plague Guard players, between a twin-linked stranglehorn cannon and their spore mine ability and the fact that its a flying monstrous creature that can deal with tanks effectively either with a venom cannon upgrade into side armour or its combat attacks. Mine supressed a Battlewagon with 15 Lootas in it the whole game until it flew up and clawed it open in combat.

Definately not something I'd throw into a melee unsupported, but I easily controlled 300 pts with 200 of mine and got to keep my 200 pts at the end of it. As soon as I saw "wings" in the entry my mind went to "Deep strike with a heavy venom cannon", which of course leads to the obvious conclusion of pheremone trail or Hive commander. Bear in mind the heavy venom cannon isn't nearly as frightening to troops as a stranglehorn cannon (which is what all of its other weapons are designed to deal with, so you're losing effectiveness by diluting its purpose. On a side note, "sonic screech" is a nice ability, but I don't see how it helps the Harpy itself, which leads me to believe that its supposed to be used in concert with some other unit, I just haven't figured out what yet, perhaps a carnifex or trygon, but those units are generally tough enough to take a beating before it strikes anyway.

Spore Mines - haven't used them yet, but I have used Biovores and they're fantastic. Anything short of a marine gets serioius headaches from Biovores. Anything in a transport really wants to run the turn they get out rather than face the reprisal of a biovore cluster, because a volley will remove a good portion of your unit. No application against vehicles, but in my mind specialisation is a good thing in the nid codex and it makes the well designed units that much more useful in their intended role.

[jamesterjlrb]

Nidzilla may not be effective but will look scary now it seems you can have MCs in FA and HS.

[darks23]

Troops


I've done the math on Hormagaunts, here it is:

Example: 60 pts buys either 6 toxin/adrenal gaunts or 10 basic gaunts.

a) 6 "uber gaunts" on the charge vs MEQ's
18 attacks -> 9 hits + 0.75 hits from scyth re-rolls -> 9.75 hits total
9.75 hits = 4.87 wounds + 2.43 from re-rolls -> 7.3 wounds

b) 10 normal gaunts on the charge vs MEQ's
30 attacks -> 15 hit + 1.25 -> 16.25 hits
16.25 -> 5.41 wounds.

.

Um ulnless I'm mistaken your re-rolls on hits should equal a lot more than .75 Bascilly you will wound about 10 times with the enhanced gaunts

[azimaith]

6 uber gaunts get 18 attacks.
9 hit, and one is re-rolled and adds about .5 thus you've got about a 50/50 chance of doing 10 hits. Lets round down here.
9 hits, 4.5 wounds on the charge (round down) 5 wounds to re-roll, another 2.5 hit (rounding down again)
Total of 6 wounds from 6 gaunts on meqs leading to 2 deaths while rounding down.


Normal 10 gaunts is 30 attacks, 15 hits, 2 re-rolls, one hit most likely from those. 16 hits, resulting in about 5 wounds.
Remember you are only re-rolling ones so this math looks accurate, acknowledging of course that none of the .5's are additive (two misses no matter how close never add up to a hit!)

[Cosmic_Girl]

Heavy Support

Carnifex - haven't tried one yet, but the pts cost seems a bit inhibitive and people are talking about running 3 as a brood? Costing it out, it gained about 35 pts increase and took a hit to leadership and lost access to a fair few options. Plus the ranged weapons really start to pile up in terms of pts cost and if you add in a landing spore, you're looking at Land Raider price range. I'm not saying they won't work for you, but that's a lot of ground they have to make up to be an attractive option.

Trygons - clearly the golden child of the codex, they have an excellent profile for very cheap pts cost and come with their own delivery mechanism that confers the deep strike ability to any unit (albeit the turn after the trygon arrives and if you're unit becomes available first it nerfs this strategy) but you can choose which units you add the Hive Commander or Pheremone Trail bonuses too, so that should help to alleviate this problem. I don't think the Prime upgrade is that essential, but it is nice to have a synapse node right where you want it. Personally I think the bio-electric field isn't that useful. 6-12 shots on a BS3 creature that has fleet... personally I'd prefer to lose the ability and reduce it in pts cost, but that would make it too strong a choice for game balance.

Biovore - covered in Spore Mines, really the changes to ammunition (not giving away a kill point every time you pull the trigger) is what makes these guys work.

Mawloc - its uses are actually pretty different to the trygon despite the obvious comparisons that people can't help but draw. Whereas the Trygon doubles as a delivery mechanism come wrecking ball (and therefore is really a 2 unit strike force, the trygon and the unit that follows it), the mawloc is much better at hunting isolated groups since it can traverse the board in a single turn and leave pie plates that makes deep striking enemy troops not want to fire in favour of scattering for the inevitable mawloc attack.

Its still not going to stop small units like obliterators/3 man combi-melta terminator squads from putting a dent in you, but something like a drop pod force or units coming out of a transport to drive by will really think twice, especially if there's a lictor around to guide the scatter. Also remember that the mawloc moves enemy models to make space for it and thus is the tyranid form of tank shocking someone off an objective.

Tyrannofex - silly name aside, the Tyrannofex isn't the best heavy in the codex. I will say from the outset having heard the arguments for and against that I think its overpriced by at about 75 pts and I would never use one in competetive play (unless I'm missing some incredible synergy). It is well into the realms of Land Raider price range. What really kills the Tyrannofex is the inability to split fire because its weapons, particularly the rupture cannon, are all designed to target different types of units. If you configure it to anti-infantry it can lay down 2 flamer templates and a large blast per turn. That's a fair bit of whack and it can back that up with some close combat ability. Since all of its templates come from the same shooting action, it determines the number of models covered by each weapon before any models are removed as casualties, so with 3 templates it could rack up quite a number of hits.

[Cosmic_Girl]

Just read something in another thread posted by CKO, adding a Tyranid Prime to a Termagant unit and buying them a Landing Spore. Gives them a threat on their back line that they just can't ignore. With so many other methods of delivering Warriors, I hadn't yet considered using his IC status to attach him to other units.

C-girl.

PS: sorry my "summary" was so long winded.

[Souleater]

@Cosmic_girl: Please do not apologise. These kind of summaries are what I was hoping for at the beginning of the new Nid Tactica.

I think the Trygon Prime is worth the upgrade to get the Synapse. It is a hardened Node over on the opponent's side. Very handy for stuff that is deep striking.

Is making the Trygon Fearless much use?

I wonder about the usefulness of regeneration. It is only 25pts but the Trygon has a lot of wounds to try and test against.

[Lord Cook]

Very very effective anti-tank, especially against an armoured fire base like a lemen russ squadron that tries to flank you (courtesy of Creed).

Speaking as a long-time Guard player, no one would ever do that. It invites destruction for a highly valuable unit, for no useful purpose.

Ymgarl Stealers

The problem I have is that, point for point, Ymgarls are both less killy and less durable than normal Genestealers. In any situation, even taking into account the Ymgarl's shapeshifting, just buying more regular 'stealers is always a better choice. So the points are paying for hibernation. But why? It's not difficult for an opponent to just deploy infantry in terrain pieces, killing your unit instantly if he happens to block the terrain you picked at the start. This forces you to pick terrain he can't easily access, leaving your Ymgarls with further to go when they arrive. Why not just outflank regular 'stealers? Especially considering they score.

Where does it say that poison lets you re-roll your to-wound rolls? Did I miss something?

It's in the main rule book.

PS: sorry my "summary" was so long winded.

Not at all. Interesting read.

[airmang]

The Ymgarls are only destroyed if you can't place a model in the terrain, and still be more than 1" away. and then it's only the models that can't be placed are destoryed. Or that's the way i read it...

[Souleater]

The big problem with them is that they are going to be charging out of cover and they don't have frag spines.

[azimaith]

You don't need frag grenades to charge out of cover. They wouldn't even help.